First

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

We had our first get together planned because of our 40th anniversary invitations to get together during our 40th year of marriage. EB and Drew and family planned our dinner at the Red Barn Pizza restaurant. Is that what it’s called? I don’t actually know. That’s what people call it. (Red Barn Farm, says Keith.) It’s a wedding venue – with a beautiful red barn – that also serves pizza on Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons. It’s a brilliant side business, or branch business, or whatever. They have the venue – parking, lawn, a little building for making pizzas, and two pizza ovens. They have used scarcity to make it desirable (that and the pizza is really good). You have to call at 4pm on the Friday before the Wednesday to get a reservation. Reservations come in half hour waves, starting at 5pm. They ask that you leave after 90 minutes, which is completely reasonable, but not enforced.

There is plenty of room to play and run, there are horses and chickens, some seating, drinks of all kinds, and ice cream. An interesting thing to me was how many teen-aged girls were there – dressed up in short gauzy dresses (and cowboy boots. It is a farm) or long/midi dresses recycled from the 60s.

We had a 5:00 time. We got there and Keith got in line. It was not a long line compared to what it grew to while we were there, but it was definitely a line.

The others arrived in 6 minutes and EB helped Keith order. The rest of us made a circle of chairs, on a little hill just north of the pizza building. It was beautifully shady.

Keith and I shared an olive oil, Canadian bacon, arugula, onion, and balsamic glaze pizza. Really great combo and the crust was killer.

We chatted it up and enjoyed watching small people hurtling themselves down the hill by us. Somehow, they did not crash. It was pretty much exactly what I hoped for – a great time with great friends.

Composition of a picture is really all that it’s about, so give most of the credit to the POTD to chance – with a tiny bit of help from the littlest one. I pointed out that the tall guy was way up hill – and maybe we should rearrange. The shortest one immediately ran down hill from his mom and made the picture perfect. I love it so much. They should probably have it on their refrigerator. 🙂

Yesterday, I found a table on FB Marketplace. We arranged to go to Hudson to see it this morning. When we should have been leaving, Keith was texting Rob to ask to borrow his truck. Planning! We liked it and brought it home. As we stopped in our driveway (and I was figuring out how to get out of a truck), Maren and Liam drove up. Liam hopped out to be a “lifter” and he and Keith had everything in our garage in a very few minutes. I loved not being the lifter (or the banger or the dropper). They set it near the old stove and the old refrigerator. We now have an entire kitchen in the garage.

Tee hee